Thursday, September 27, 2012

iOS6 removes the YouTube app

I recently received a notice about the availability of the iOS6 upgrade for my iPad. I thought it was cool to see the upgrade and install it. After a warning related to the battery level (at least 50% or plugged in to the electric outlet) in my iPad I proceeded to download it and have it installed.

Everything was just fine, in my opinion there's not too many new functionality I could take advantage of at this time, and there were some new apps installed and yes, a very cool world clock similar to that one I used to have in my iPod. And the maps application, an absolute divorce decree for Apple, they have their own. The addition of the location services (optional), which sounds to me more like an Android like behavior. Is Apple secretly overtly trying to emulate the Google's success formula?

What it came to my attention was that the YouTube application had disappeared. I looked for it all around, and it was gone. I thought I may have accidentally removed it. I tried to look for it at the apple store, without any luck and finding more than 200 hits related with youTube like applications. And ... after "googling" it for a while I found that this is "normal". The YouTube application was removed from it because Apple is planning to design one of their own that will replace the traditional YouTube app. May be Apple didn't have his own iYouTube ready on time with the release of iOS6, and this could have made the users more anxious than not being able to play their cool playlists.

I've tracked the Apple share in the stock market (NASDAQ:AAPL) for a while, extrapolating the behavior of it correlated to the release of the iPhone5 and the future marketing strategies of Apple, and this made me remember the story of the Tulips in Holland ( http://www.damninteresting.com/the-dutch-tulip-bubble-of-1637 ) where there was a huge euphoria about the Viceroy Tulip bulbs to the point that a trader could make a profit of an equivalent of $60,000 USD today a month, and the price of a Tulip could be worth the price of a house. And when this temporary madness was replaced by the reasoning the bubble was bursted and the price of the Tulips felt all the way down creating a big depression in the Dutch economy.

After Apple released the iPhone5 its share reached the all time top value of $700.00 USD, as soon as it was announced that even though the sales of it were good but not as good as expected the price retreated to $665.00 per share. If Apple cannot be innovative and creative once more, people may see the Apple bubble burst. So what's the next move? why is Apple divorcing from specific apps? Is their marketing strategy focused towards emulating the discrete giant steps of Google? Is the Steve Job's iCar something that is going to surprise the market once more? ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/6958816/Steve-Jobs-wanted-to-build-Apple-iCar ), is the new iYouTube app going to be available to watch movies in the built in retina touchscreen in the car? will the aux audio device allow compatibility with pre-iWhatever devices? or you'll have to buy an adapter for it too?

In my personal opinion, Apple has reached a historic top level where it has to reinvent itself once more and after the iPhone5 the next step cannot be an iPhone6, 7 ... 20, cause otherwise the market will be saturated. So to prevent the investors from looking elsewhere they'll have to open new markets. May be it's about time to change the way we watch T.V. In the mean time as long as the common saying reads "I'll buy it if it is shiny and made by Apple" keeps on being a valid success formula, Apple will keep on being a growing giant, no matter if they "forgot" to warn about the YouTube omission.